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Frank D. Luna

Introduction To 3D Game Programming With Directx 9.0C: A Shader Approach (Wordware Game and Graphics Library) 1st Edition

by Frank Luna (Author)

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Presents an introduction to programming interactive computer graphics, with an emphasis on game development, using real-time shaders with DirectX 9.0. It teaches the fundamentals of Direct3D and shader programming, after which the reader will be prepared to go on and learn more advanced techniques. The book is divided into three main parts. Part I explains the mathematical tools that will be used throughout this book. Part II shows how to implement elementary 3D techniques, such as defining 3D geometry, lighting, texturing, alpha blending, and stenciling by using shaders and the HLSL. Part III is largely about applying Direct3D to implement a variety of interesting techniques and special effects, such as working with meshes, character animation, terrain rendering, picking, particle systems, environment mapping, normal mapping, and rendering to textures.

ISBN-10

1598220160
ISBN-13

978-1598220162
Edition

1st
Publisher

Jones & Bartlett Learning
Publication date

June 25, 2006
Language

English
Dimensions

6 x 1 x 9 inches
Print length

544 pages
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About the Author

Frank D. Luna is a program-mer for Hero Interactive. He has been programming interactive 3D graphics for over eight years and has been using DirectX since its fifth iteration. He is the author of Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 from Wordware Publishing, Inc., and lives in Los Angeles.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Jones & Bartlett Learning; 1st edition (June 25, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 544 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1598220160
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1598220162
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.95 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,347,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #29 in DirectX Software Programming
- #1,053 in Computer Graphics
- #2,161 in Game Programming

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Estefano Palacios Topic

This book is very cool!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 28, 2010

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Many people here have talked about how good this book is on features, and yes, yes it is. But one of the most compelling things that I saw in this book is the pacing. I mean, Luna literally plays with timing of presenting concepts with great skill. He never abuses my mind, but he never lets me get bored, which is something other graphics programming books should learn to do. Also, sometimes Luna advices you to "read lightly" certain concepts: he encourages not to stress about details. And this is perfect! As you advance you realize that Luna was actually planning to give you the details later, and when he does, it all comes together quite nicely.

He also has a very academic tone, but not a dry-academic tone, just a pure, fresh, academic tone. One never gets lost in explanations, and the sample programs are straightforward. One reviewer said that he disliked the way Luna writes the argument list of functions and whatnot. For me this was great: DirectX's public interface is so terrible (when is it a pointer? What does this typedef mean? Etc..), I mean, there is really very little consistence across types and typedefs and whatnot (hate the fact that there is absolutely no encapsulation, yielding to me always raising this question when writing code: was this a function or public member?). Well, It did me much justice to explicitly know what was going on in each function call.

I have read tons of programming books, on may topics, and few people handle concept pacing as well as Luna does (honestly, even if I liked Effective C++ more, I believe Luna has better pedagogical skills than Meyers (I know, Effecitve C++ is much more professional, but still)).

One of the things I disliked is the Framework he uses to build his programs. Yes, it was very easy to grasp, used many OOP concepts nicely, and overall it felt right. But the design pattern it followed felt to me as it could've been implemented better. The client beware condition of "only creating one App object" (and he does this with other classes too) is not something any C++ professional will be easily in love with. And actually, there is a way to implement this in a client safe pattern: Singleton design pattern (local static object constructed in a static function belonging to a class with private constructors).

I am not going to write anything more because all the other qualities have been (re)written a lot already, and I hate to do that.

But still, hope this helped.

2 people found this helpful

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mpautzke

Great Exercises and Sample Programs!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 5, 2012

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This is the second game programming book iv purchased from amazon. The first book i bought was for FPS programming. Lots of good information but was not the easiest to pick up on his coding style. After struggling a bit with that i decided to look for another book of equivalent appeal. Since it would be the second book i was purchasing i thought I'd try to research what the best book was for game programming. If you try putting that question into google, not many good results come up, but within the countless links i tried, one gave really good feed back on this book. They said that a friend of theirs that was working at a game programming company recommended this book to those who want to learn. My thought was if a professional game programmer liked the book then it had to be good. So i got it and i have to agree that it is a very good read. Not only is the book good but the samples he has given are very nice and easy to follow! Sure there are some things missing from this book but you cant expect to cover everything in 500 pages. This book goes over making the 3d world, not much collision detection, no physics and no AI. In my opinion id rather have a book that is exceptional in one area then a book that includes everything but in a half ass way. I strongly recommend this book to those serious about game programming!

One person found this helpful

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Max M.

Great book for skilled programmers who know nothing about Direct3D

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 29, 2009

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I've looked at a lot of books on Direct3D and 3D programming and they seem to always fall into two categories: 1) books for people who don't know how to program 2) books for people who are already familiar with 3D programming but want to learn a specific language or API.

Luna's book is the only book I've found that falls into the category that I needed: a book for competent programmers who know zilch about 3D programming. Back in 2006 I learned Direct3D using the first edition of this book at my job, and I recently bought this edition to refresh my memory.

The new edition contains all the introductory math and covers all the same subjects as the previous version, but the entire book has been re-worked to use programmable shaders. The use of shaders is fairly basic, but some more advanced techniques (such as bump mapping, displacement mapping, etc) are introduced as well. (All the typos from the first edition have been fixed, as well.)

If you're not familiar with C++, or if you're completely unfamiliar with trigonometry and geography, I would *not* recommend this book. It absolutely assumes C++ experience, and while it covers the math, it won't really teach you math from scratch, it will just help you remember those old classes from high school.

Also, programmable shaders will NOT work with older video cards, or certain modern budget video cards. That means everything in this book won't work. If that's an issue for you, I recommmend you get the first edition of this book.

If you're already comfortable with C++, this book is a great introduction to Direct3D. I really can't recommend it enough.

4 people found this helpful

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Amazonerd

Pretty Solid

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 15, 2011

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The actual book itself is a pretty decent resource for learning directX. I'm not a fan of DirectX itself however as it can be very tedious.

Regardless there are plenty of examples that are broken down into essential fragments that help you to understand key concepts. The first example for the Sprite Demo is pretty well done and walks you through the basic of creating textures and sprites, and drawing them as well as implementing backgrounds and controls so that you can start coding in no time.

As for the book itself, I am very picky and I'm not a fan of programming books that don't have a spine where they can stay flat open. This might sound ridiculous but this book is very small and can't stay open on it's own which I find kind of annoying.

There is a website however that features all the code from this book and it is a great resource in addition to the text if you are trying to learn DirectX.

2 people found this helpful

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Mr. C. Whiteside

An essential guide for games programmers

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 12, 2011

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Undoubtedly the best-written and most concise guide to DirectX programming available today, Luna is the defacto manual for Microsoft's PC API. Starting from first principles with an excellent primer on the mathematics of 3D game development and moving through drawing simple triangles, texture-mapping, lighting and ultimately complex techniques such as High-Level Shader Language (HLSL), it makes for a complete introduction for moderately experienced coders.

The examples are superb and clearly explained, with well-written code available on the book's website. By the time the reader has finished it, they should be quite capable of producing a basic 3D game that utilises all the graphical techniques modern videogames employ, including realtime shadows, dynamically changing water effects and effective lighting.

While this does not cover the more advanced techniques available with the latest DirectX editions, it should give such a grounding to the reader as to allow them to understand the API well and pick up additional D3D skills as needed. An indispensible reference for students, professionals and hobbiests alike.

Octavian

Great book on DirectX 9

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 29, 2014

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Great book on DirectX 9! I really like that the author uses the first few chapters as a means to introduce the reader to general 3D graphics concepts like 3D math, the 3D pipeline etc. This is in contrast to other books on the same subject which jump straight into the API without giving the user a chance to familiarize themselves to basic 3D concepts. Another good thing is that the book was written with the programmable pipeline in mind and this will help a lot when you decide to move to DirectX 11.

You will definitely gain a lot from this book, but don't forget that it is meant to be an introduction. So you will have to do some additional reading if you want to make video games or even build your own engine. Buy it!

SanDisk

Grundlagen und mehr über die Grafik- & Direct3D Programmierung mit DirectX erfahren

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on August 25, 2014

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Ein englisches Buch für C/C++ Programmierer, die Grundlagen und mehr/genaueres über die DirectX 9.0c, Direct3D & Grafikprogrammierung erfahren wollen (DirectX ist übrigends Abwärtskompatibel. Wer kein Windows XP & somit DX 9 mehr nutzt, der hat DX 10 oder 11. Aber auch z.B. in DX 11 funktionieren DX 9 Programme).
Im Buch wird nicht nur erklärt, welcher Quellcode/DX-Funktionen benötigt werden, sondern auch warum. Incl. vielen Bildern.
Außerdem folgen anschließend jeweils noch erklärte mathematischen Formeln, Grafiken, usw. Zum erklären & vertiefen.
Buch ist incl. vielen Bildern & Grafiken, Quellcodeauszügen und gut gegliederten Inhaltsverzeichnis bzw Buchaufbau.
Jedes Kapitel beginnt mit einer kleinen Kapitelinhaltsbeschreibung, und endet mit Aufgaben incl ergänzenden Angaben.
Übrigends: Das Buch handelt nicht ausschließlich von Pixel- & Vertexshadern, aber sie spielen ab S. 197 im rest des Buches öfter eine Rolle.

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dvdsammler

One of the best books about DirectX 9

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on January 7, 2008

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I think this book is one of the best books out there for 3d programming with DirectX 9. It covers all important aspects from mathematical foundations to advanced topics like programming shaders with HLSL.
Originally I bought the book as a reference and supplement to the other books I have on the topic, but I found it so good that I am currently reading it from cover to cover. It has certainly deepened my understanding on 3D programming in general and using DirectX in particular.
It is one of the rare cases where the book really offers more than its cover says. While it surely begins with all the needed basics to justify the word 'Introduction' in its title it also goes very deep in a wide range of advanced topics. In my opinion this book is far more than just an introduction.

Another plus is that the book is very well written and uses a much better C++ programming style than I was used to with other books on the topic.

Not a downside, but something you need to know before buying the book is that you need good C++ reading skill to understand the coding examples. (Any serious DirectX programming I know of is done in C++ anyway, so that fact is more of a plus than a minus.) Another thing is that DirectX 10 is not covered. So do not expect any word on version 10 in this book. But as the title clearly states this is a book on DirectX 9. So you probably wouldn't expect DirectX 10 anyway.

If you want to know what is in DirectX 9 and how to use it, I would certainly recommend to go with this book.

2 people found this helpful

gabriele bertacchi

Buon tutorial per gli shaders, debole tutorial per il calcolo numerico

Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on January 10, 2014

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Sviluppa in ordine crescente di difficoltà la sintassi di scrittura degli shaders per i DirectX9.0c anche con esempi pratici volti alla costruzione di una scena di gioco. Non approfondisce come estrarre dalla pipeline della GPU e riportare sulla CPU alcuni risultati utili all'analisi numerica.

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Introduction To 3D Game Programming With Directx 9.0C: A Shader Approach (Wordware Game and Graphics Library) 1st Edition

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